


Never Have I Ever

by chiiyo86



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, Kissing, M/M, Missing Scene, Multi, Never Have I Ever, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21922687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiiyo86/pseuds/chiiyo86
Summary: “Never Have I Ever wanted to kiss Bill,” Richie said and then promptly raised his glass to drink from it.An interlude in the Losers' Club's reunion at the Jade of the Orient.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/The Losers Club
Comments: 14
Kudos: 59
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Never Have I Ever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [salvadore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/salvadore/gifts).



> The entire Losers' Club having a crush on Bill is practically book canon as far as I'm concerned. I had fun writing this treat and hope you enjoy it! Happy Yuletide!

The conversation had lapsed after Ben had finished telling them the story of his coach and how he’d lost weight to prove the bastard wrong. Sipping their new beer, maybe one beer too many given everything they’d drunk before, they were waiting for someone else to speak, all expecting for it to be Mike, all fearing what he had to say. Bill could feel it in each and every of his friends, this almost desperate desire to stall and not let it be real—not let _It_ be real. Bill wanted to speak but didn’t know what to say. They all knew what he’d been doing with his life since he’d left Derry and he didn’t want to talk about Audra; even just in speech, he wanted to keep her away from Derry. Mike seemed to be waiting for them to breach the topic of why he’d called them back home, wishing to give them the space to process or maybe reluctant himself to break the atmosphere of rekindling camaraderie between them. 

“Anyone one up for a few rounds of Never Have I Ever?” Richie said, tilting his glass so the amber liquid in it would slosh around. “I’m eager to know what fun you Losers have been having those past decades.”

“Probably not half as much fun as _you_ ’ve been having,” Beverly said.

Richie made a kissing face to her intention and then they started playing. A wind of relief had breathed over the group and Bill could feel it in the slacking of his own shoulders, the new ease of his breathing. Trust Richie to speak when no one else would and to lighten the mood when no one else could. It was only putting off the inevitable, and they all knew it, but they needed another moment. They weren’t kids anymore, weren’t as reckless or as flexible as when they’d been eleven years old. One more moment wouldn’t hurt anyone. 

The first few questions were silly and mostly involved their teenage years and early twenties; the years they should have had together, probably, if Derry hadn’t spat them one after the other like chewed-up hulls. They played for maybe twenty minutes, half-an-hour— _never have I ever fallen down in public because I was drunk, never have I ever been in handcuffs, never have I ever flirted my way out of a speeding ticket, never have I ever been thrown out of a club or a restaurant_. Richie drank to most of them, which always triggered fits of giggles in the group, louder every time. Richie was more than a little drunk by the time it was his turn again. He leaned back in his chair, scrutinizing them with half-lidded eyes, his face looking oddly naked without his glasses. His gaze stopped on Bill and he had that excited, mischievous Richie look, intact from twenty-seven years ago. Either it had been dredged up from the subsoil of childhood by alcohol and the circumstances, or it had never changed at all; in any case, it made Bill’s stomach flutter with an all too familiar mix of dread and excitement. Bill’s fingers clutched his glass and he waited with trepidation for whatever was about to come out of Richie’s trashmouth. 

“Never Have I Ever wanted to kiss Bill,” Richie said and then promptly raised his glass to drink from it. 

A moment of stunned silence followed Richie’s prompt. Bill’s fingers were still around his glass, clenched in preparation for taking a shot even though he didn’t need to—this hadn’t been meant to make _him_ drink. _Richie_ had wanted to kiss _him_? Bill couldn’t imagine him admitting to it back when they were children in Derry, but a lot of time had passed and Richie had obviously been around the block a few times since then.

“Come on, guys,” Richie said when no one but him drank. “Don’t leave me stranded, I know I wasn’t the only one. Can’t have been.”

Beverly let out a soft sigh, a sound like a punctured tire slowly deflating. When she drank, Richie punched a fist in the air and crowed, “Beverly takes the first shot!”

Bill’s cheeks heated up, as though he were eleven years old and noticing her for the first time all over again. She gave him a small smile and he smiled back, uncertain but charmed despite himself. He wasn’t surprised, because whatever bits and pieces of memory he’d uncovered from his Derry childhood had led him to think it might have been like that between them, but it was awkward. Not that Beverly wasn’t gorgeous, but Bill was a married man now. It became even more awkward when Bill caught Ben glancing at Beverly, then down at his glass. In a rush, Bill remembered the massive, obvious crush that Ben had on Beverly when they were kids. He wanted to punch Richie in the nose for bringing it up; they didn’t need that sort of complications if they were about to face It again.

Oblivious to what had passed between Ben, Beverly and Bill, Richie continued to loudly encourage the others to drink too, in a cheerleader’s overly enthusiastic tone of voice. “Do IT! Do IT!”

Bill saw that he wasn’t going to relent until someone put his foot down. “Richie, I don’t think that—”

But he shut up when Eddie drank too, his teeth clicking against the rim of his glass so hard that Bill cringed, wondering if it had hurt. Richie whooped so loudly that even though they were in a private room, they might have been in danger of being thrown out. _Never Have I Ever been thrown out of a restaurant because my friend got excited trying to make my other friends admit they’ve wanted to kiss me in the past._

“I knew it!” Richie yelled, pointing a forceful index at Eddie. “I fucking knew it! Eddie Kaspbrak, you little—”

“Shut up,” Eddie mumbled. His face was beet-red and he was very obviously trying not to look in Bill’s direction. “God, just shut up already, Richie.”

“Come on, who’s next?”

Mike had an odd, twisted smile, furtive on his thin face, and then he drank too. Bill looked at him with wide eyes and he shrugged in a good-natured ‘ _what can I say?’_ gesture. Ben tilted his head, thoughtful, glanced at Beverly once more and brought his glass to his lips. Out of all of them, it was probably that last one that hit Bill over the head the hardest. The sense of unreality that he’d gotten when he’d laid eyes on his friends for the first time in over two decades had come back, but this time it wasn’t caused by the familiar warring with the unfamiliar. He felt like he’d taken a dive into deep, troubled waters where he couldn’t see anything familiar at all. He’d known that his friends had looked up to him, back when they were kids; he’d sometimes feared, sometimes resented the role of a leader that had been thrust upon him, especially during the scariest moments of the 1958 summer—he couldn’t remember all of it yet, but he could remember that much. He’d never even suspected that there might have been another layer to it, though; they’d all been so young, barely old enough to understand what kissing was all about. _Never Have I Ever—_

“I—” he said and then shut his mouth, his cheeks burning. He was astounded and embarrassed, as well as a little flattered, shamefully enough. He had absolutely no idea what to say.

The others looked back at him. Richie seemed to be having the time of his life, drunk enough that no sense of shame or embarrassment could touch him, if it ever did. Beverly and Mike looked amused, Beverly with a touch of shyness to it—and Ben looked a little startled at his own admission, like he’d never consciously thought about it before. Eddie, for his part, mostly looked like he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him whole. All the grave and frightening reasons that had drawn them back together had been shoved aside, if only for a moment. 

“Aww, Big Bill,” Richie said. “You don’t have to make that face.” 

He rose from his seat and reached out across the table to Bill, who watched him do it, not understanding what he was aiming for until Richie had a grip on the collar of his shirt and had brought their faces together. He was close enough that Bill could see the circle drawn by the rim of his contacts around his irises. _Richie, what on earth are you_ —Beverly gasped. Eddie let out a shocked, “ _Richie_.” Richie’s lips tasted like beer—and Bill didn’t have the time to register much more before Richie let go. 

Richie shamelessly wiped his mouth and said, sitting back on his chair, “Have at it, everyone. After all, we might all die in one or two days.”

“F-fuck you, Richie,” Bill choked out. 

Richie’s words ran a tremor across the room and then Beverly was standing up, walking around the table and kissing Bill too. Bill instinctively parted his lips and they shared a breath. A hot flush washed over him from the tips of his toes to the top of his balding head as Beverly’s fingers brushed against the edge of his jaw. He was thirty-eight, he was eleven; he was a molecule, an atom, scattered to the winds after his core being had been blown away. 

The others followed, as naturally as if this had been preordained from the moment they’d met. Ben was next, immediately after Beverly, making Bill wonder how much of the kiss was Ben wanting to taste the traces of lipstick Beverly had left behind on Bill’s lips. Ben’s kiss was sweet, though, hesitant but affectionate. Eddie’s was hurried, a quick, too forceful close-mouthed press of his lips against Bill’s while his hand gripped Bill’s biceps hard. He pulled away jerkily, his eyes avoiding Bill’s, two red spots blooming on the apple of his cheeks. Mike was last and his kiss left Bill with a sense of sadness. Sadness for their lost childhood or for what would come next? Bill couldn’t say, but when Mike moved away his expression was serious and solemn. 

“Thank you,” he told Bill, and Bill wanted to ask him what for but he couldn’t form the words.

The spell created by Richie’s ridiculous dare had dissipated like a fog patch. Richie could tell, because his shit-eating had vanished. They all could tell and they exchanged one long look with each other. _I’ve now kissed all of them,_ was Bill’s dazed thought. Stupid drunken kisses done during a stupid drunken game, but they felt like they carried more significance than the circumstances suggested. 

“One item checked off the bucket list,” Richie said—an absurdity, since he hadn’t remembered Bill a day ago. They were all past lightening the mood, now. 

_Time to face the music._


End file.
